Survivor

        
     After at least thirty phone calls to people from the Miami Herald, the Pan American Development Foundation, random hotels in the dominican republic, countless American Airlines represenatives, I'm on the plane to the DR, where I will be taken to Port-au-Prince by a non-profit organization. I had no idea this would actually be happening when I got on the plane from DC to Ft Lauderdale, and at somepoints it all felt extremely stupid and insane. But now nervousness is taking over.

    They've all been telling me I will be traumatized; 'prepare yourself emotionally' for the destruction you will see. They are really concerned with dead bodies, images of dead bodies on the street. But for some reason, it doesn't scare me. I've seen dead bodies before (I did, after all, grow up in Haiti). What I am scared of is seeing what this has done to everyone alive, and especially to the family. Stress. Trauma. Depression. I'm afraid to see what has become of them. Have they lost hope? Are they completely depressed? Angry? Terrified? Changed forever?

The truth is, I'm not scared of seeing the dead; I'm scared of seeing what has become of those that are still living.